Our side scored an important point in ?the battle for the hearts and minds? of the Muslim world on March 10, when an unprecedented fatwa was issued. Since about 2002, polls of Muslims worldwide have showed growing support for Osama Bin Laden. To reverse the inertia of such a dangerous trend, real leadership is needed among the Ulema (Muslim clergy) internationally. The Islamic Council in Spain has been the first to step up and show that leadership. Almost immediately, their call reverberated in Morocco and Libya , the countries of origin for most Spanish Muslims, where some clerics echoed the opinions of their Spanish counterparts.

The fatwa condemns Bin Laden on the basis of Istihlal, which literally means ?to declare something legal that Allah has deemed illegal.? This is actually a very serious crime in Islam and immediate grounds for stripping someone of his/her status as a Muslim. It is also approximately the same basis upon which Bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslims condemn Muslims who embrace western ways, along with any Muslim country that employs civil law rather than Shari?a law.